Calico Pennants by David A. Ross

plane was not merely circling; it was in distress. Panning the breadth of the sky he saw nothing at first, though his ears told him all he needed to know. Still concealed by the remaining clouds, the plane fumbled like a blind man in a strange room, and the fine hair on the back of Julian’s neck bristled from a sudden change of energy that seemed to originate somewhere beyond time. Just then the Electra came cutting through the clouds. Rocking and wobbling as it passed perilously overhead, Julian thought, for a split second, that he could see the pilot’s face through the glass of the cockpit. It was a vaguely familiar face, a face he’d once seen in a picture, or in a dream. Or perhaps in a reflection...
    Running frantically up the beach to determine where the plane might touch down, he tripped over his elongated, sopping pant legs and went sprawling onto the sand. Passing his tongue over his cracked lips he tasted a drop of his blood. He spat out sand and grit and discovered he’d chipped a tooth. As he lay prone on the beach he heard an impact uphill, though there was no explosion, nor evidence that the downed plane was on fire. Veiled not only in fog, this exotic locale seemed to manifest some impossible schizophrenia.
    Up the mountainside he struggled, determined to reach the crash site before it was too late. The humid rain forest, with its tangled overgrowth, resisted intrusion. But Julian would not be denied. He knew the survival of those on board the plane might depend upon his timely arrival, and possibly his own rescue was contingent with theirs.
    Hardly equal to such a strenuous initial test, he was nearly overcome with exhaustion. He knelt down in the mud and covered his face with slender, trembling hands. Appealing to some higher power, he found himself supplicating renewed strength and clarification.
    “Where am I?” he muttered. “How long was I lost at sea? Is it possible I’ve landed in the Marianas? Or the Carolines? Have I drifted as far as the Phoenix Islands? Kiribati? Vanuatu?”
    Finding strength, he moved onward. He had to try. Lives were at stake. Possibly his own... His muscles begged for rest with each step. What if they were all dead when he reached them? Who would he tell? Such morbid thoughts were not even to be considered, he told himself. The plane had not exploded upon impact. They were not dead! Of course they weren’t...
    But once he reached the perceived crash site, he found only a clearing lush with ferns and flowers. A solitary dragonfly whirled round and round his head. Where was the plane?
    Running on line. Will repeat. Will repeat ...
    Julian was immediately confronted not only with the enigma of the missing plane, but with a tumultuous landslide composed of his fears and regrets from the past. Hopes, memories, fantasies, doubts, questions, faded dreams: his emotions tumbled over him unexpectedly and pressed upon him like a rockslide, as if all the loneliness he’d ever denied demanded expression at this inopportune moment. Tears dampened his sanguine cheeks and he found himself wondering whether he might have died and was encountering an afterworld of his own making.
    “She’s over there,” directed Buenaventura at the last possible moment before Julian lost himself to a plethora of emotional confusion.
    “Where are you, BV?” he called.
    “Time is on our side, Captain.”
    “Did you see the plane?” Julian implored.
    “Remember Eddie Rickenbacker!”
    “The plane!” Julian insisted. “Didn’t you see it go down?”
    “Over there,” repeated Buenaventura.
    “But I’m sure I saw a plane. The engines were choking. Just like the Scoundrel’s engines. I know that sound all too well. And I’m sure it came down near this spot!”
    On his perch in a nearby fir tree Buenaventura turned a full somersault, then spread his wings and flew directly onto Julian’s shoulder.
    “Maybe I only thought I saw a plane,” Julian theorized. “I might have been delirious